Representations of Motherhood by Female Ethnic Minority Novelists in Britain

This thesis addresses the representation of migrant motherhood from the perspective of the mother in novels by British ethnic minority writers. In this thesis, Leila Aboulela’s The Translator, Preethi Nair’s One Hundred Shades of White, and Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age are examined as novels that belong to the burgeoning literary terrain which reclaims the often repressed and marginalised maternal voice and narrative. Examining these texts, I draw on concepts from various feminist and postcolonial theorists to illuminate the texts’ engagement with stereotypes about migrant mothers of “Third World” heritage, specifically their hegemonic view as victims and/or agents of patriarchy. This study investigates how migrant writers unsettle longstanding stereotypes about migrant and “Third World” mothers. In this research, I argue that the texts’ accentuation of maternal perspectives in narrating migrant subjectivities reveals complex journeys of (un)belonging which subvert assimilationist tones that characterise certain works by migrant writers. Portraying a complex migration process, which generally entails an intricate attachment to the country of origin/heritage, problematises reductionist representations of “Third World” countries and traditions and their role in the mothers’ achievement of subjectivity and agency. Approaching these novels, I focus on the writers’ interrogation of tropes that are usually associated with “Third World” women’s oppression. I argue that the nuanced mothering experiences that three texts present challenge patriarchal constructions of motherhood and certain feminist writers’ imaginations of migrant mothers as passive victims of patriarchy. This study contributes to the growing interest, both in feminist theories and literature, in reclaiming the maternal voice. This thesis focuses on revealing the three texts’ representation of complex/ambivalent mothering adds nuance to the compelling body of studies in literary criticism and in feminist scholarship that are concerned with the study of migrant motherhood in ways that are challenging to reductionist representations and readings.